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by emmawicked



Series: POTO Secret Santa [2]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 10:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17140187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmawicked/pseuds/emmawicked
Summary: Raoul and Christine celebrate Christmas, many years after the events underneath the Opera House.





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeremystollemyheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeremystollemyheart/gifts).



“Raoul, love, where did Monsieur Firmin go?” Christine calls from her place on the stepladder. She fiddles with the arrangement of the choir girls and ballerinas. One of the ballerina’s tutus is beginning to tear. Hmm. She’ll have to remember to repair it.

“He’s hiding over here, darling!” Raoul answers belatedly, “He was hiding underneath the masquerade dancers.”

“How naughty!” Lines appear in her brow as she concentrates on balancing the final ballerina on the mantel. “Could you bring him over here?”

Raoul’s footsteps sound loudly on the herringbone floor. “He’s right here for you.” He brushes his slightly graying hair out of his eyes that remain young despite the march of time and tragedies.

Christine smiles at him and takes M. Firmin. “How ever will I repay you?” She teases.

“A kiss would be a good start.”

Christine leans down to peck him on the cheek.

“Is that payment enough?” She murmurs. Raoul flushes pink to the tips of his ears. Christine bites back a grin. After all these years, he’s still so easy to embarrass.

“I believe so,” he says, “Would you like my help?” Christine hums and gazes around the room.

“If you could put the Nativity scene together on the bookcase, that would be lovely.”

“Of course, my darling.” Raoul wanders to the bin and starts searching for baby Jesus and Mary.

Christine hums while brushing M. Firmin’s wild mustache out of his eyes. It isn’t the true M. Firmin (the last Christine had heard, he’d left the opera business entirely to retire to the Danish countryside). M. Firmin, in actuality, is a nutcracker Jesus that looked remarkably like her old Opera manager.

Christine settles him among the ballet girls (rats, he used to call them). It seems fitting that he watches over them now, as he tried to once before.

Raoul took to arranging nutcrackers rather well. Each year, their collection grows by scores and each year their collection takes longer and longer to put up. Christine thinks her father would be happy to see the two of them continuing their holiday tradition. Sometimes, she still misses her and her father’s small collection above the fireplace in Sweden, but now the memory is bittersweet instead of the sharp pain that laced it years ago.

“Christine, do you know where Mary popped off to? I can’t find her anywhere.” Christine turns in her precarious position to look at her husband.

“Darling,” Christine laughs, “You’re holding her.” Her husband looks down to his left hand.

“Well would you look at that.” He furrows his overgrown eyebrows. “It appears you married a fool.”

Christine laughs again, the sound echoing in the large foyer. “Perhaps, but you’re _my_ fool.” Raoul smiles at her, and she feels a shard of pure nostalgia dig into her heart. His smile reminds her of Swedish summers and the ocean and evenings spent listening to her father’s violin and silly stories shared with that wild blond boy. Christine wonders if her childhood home has changed throughout the years, or if her father’s nutcrackers still rest on the shelf above the fireplace.

Turning her face away, she lets her hair hide her face as she climbs down the stepladder. Straightening up, she brushes dust and lint from the skirt of her dress.

“Do you think Marie is done baking yet?” Christine asks.

“I hope so, I’m looking forwards to her newest concoction. Who knew Americans could be so inventive.”

Christine swats his side. “I bet you’re looking forward to it,” she teases, “Your waistline has expanded since she’s arrived.”

“I’m fairly sure Mme Therése mis-measured me. ”

“Oh no she didn’t, you fiend!” Raoul chuckles, good-natured as always, at Christine’s scolding.

“Perhaps you’re right, but it’s hardly my fault she’s such a good cook.” Silently, Christine agrees.

“Oh come on,” Christine says, taking her husband’s hand, “Let’s eat.” They make it to the entry way before Christine drops Raoul’s hand.

“Race you!” She calls, halfway down the hall.

“Oh you little-”

Christine hears little else other than the pound of footsteps after her and her own childish laughter.

“Caught you!” Raoul sweeps her off her feet just before she gets to the kitchen.

“Only because I’m wearing a dress!” Christine protests. “I demand a rematch!”

“I don’t think so, Madame. Fair is fair after all.”

“Oh is it?”

“It is, in fact. Actually, I believe I know what my prize will be as well.”

“Wh-” Raoul steals a kiss before Christine can finish her sentence.

Christine smiles fondly. “You _are_ a fool.”

“Definitely,” Raoul says, “But I’ll always be your fool.”

Christine places another kiss on Raoul’s cheek. “You better be. Will you please let me down now?”

Raoul acquiesces and lets Christine slide gently to the floor. She fixes her skirt and darts in the kitchen before Raoul can move.

“I still beat you!”

Raoul chuckles. “That you did, Madame.”

Marie is not in the kitchen, but the ovens are still warm so Christine suspects she’s around somewhere. On the counter, there’s a pecan pie in a pan with Delft blue patterned plates stacked next to it. On the top plate, there’s a note.

“Dear Madame and Monsieur,” Raoul reads aloud, “I’m out getting ingredients at the moment, so I hope you enjoy the new dessert recipe. Signed, Marie.”

“How on Earth did she know we were planning to sneak down here?” Christine wonders.

“I suppose she just knows us too well.”

“Or we’re just very obvious.”

“One of those,” Raoul agrees. He starts to dish a well proportioned slice onto each plate.

“Bon appetit, ma coeur.”

The pecan pie is better than expected: nutty and woodsy with a sweetness lying underneath. Christine’s appreciation for American cuisine grows with each bite. Those Americans did think up some extraordinary things with the wild land they inherited from war. Despite their wonderful desserts, Christine is terribly glad she does not live there in that restless place. Not to say that France has been overly kind to her. Sometimes when she dreams, she still feels His clammy hands with their terrifying strength; still sees the unending darkness and cramped space, smells the low-lying musk of the damp underground. So dark… so cruel…

And yet.

“Raoul,” she starts. “Do you ever think about leaving the country?”

He looks at her with slight confusion in his eyes. “Not particularly. I never thought about it much because of my familiar ties.”

“Not even with all the bad memories attached to this country?”

Raoul’s expression becomes troubled at her probe. His gray eyes lost in thoughts of darker times. Pleading. A scream. A cold hand and noose around his neck. He is silent for so long that Christine fears her husband will not answer.

“I am not there anymore,” he says finally. “Your presence is enough to ward off bad memories, my love. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking about the town I grew up in. There was this farm miles from the village. The farmer grew wheat and raised sheep in this old barn- I’d be surprised if it hasn’t fallen apart by now- and there was a lavender patch on one side. The farmer had a daughter two years older than me, and we would make crowns out of the flowers and dolls out of the dried stems.” Memories of her childhood seep through her brain like a sieve. She remembers green hills, salt in the air, the scent of fish in the air by the docks. But more than anything, she’s afraid of what she doesn’t remember.

“Would you like to go back there?” Raoul questions, interrupting Christine’s introspection.

“For a visit?”

“Or permanently.”

Christine stops, heart and bones. “Would you really do that?” She forces the words out of her clogged throat.

“Of course I would. There is little for me in this country: my father is dead, my sisters spread to the four winds, and my brother-”

Raoul stops, choked up.

“Christine,” he says again, “I would follow you to the Indies if it meant I could spend my life with you, in whatever capacity you allow me. You matter more to me than anything else left in this world.”

Christine looks into his glistening eyes and feels a wetness run down her cheek as well.

“Okay,” she forces out, “Let’s go home.”

Raoul smiles faintly at that.

“Yes,” he echoes, “Let’s go home.”

 

A home is rarely a place. Sometimes a home is the memory of old firewood. Stone churches. The scent of lavender. A newspaper clipping with three words. Some find their homes in tradition and worship. Sometimes though, a home is found in another person.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my writing & wanna talk to me follow my tumblr @emmawicked


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